


A Start

by quantumoddity



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Anxiety, Awkward Crush, Comfort, Crush at First Sight, Early in Canon, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 03:43:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15525288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumoddity/pseuds/quantumoddity
Summary: Caleb is starting to regret coming to the circus, with the noise and the crowds and the clamour. But then he remembers why he said yes in the first place





	A Start

There were fewer things that ranked higher on the grand List of Things that Make Caleb Widowghast Anxious than tight crowds of people, unfamiliar settings, strangers and loud noise.

Which really begged the question of why he’d ever thought coming to this carnival was a good idea.

It had mostly been for Nott, he knew; wherever she went, he went too and her eyes had lit up in a childlike way he rarely saw these days at the mere mention of it, making this something of an inevitability. But now his friend was a good few packed-far-too-tight bodies away from him, chattering away with or rather, being chattered away at by, the young tiefling girl (Jester, was it? He wasn’t good with names). And Caleb was somehow feeling completely alone in a crowd of people, wishing that their evening had taken a different turn. He kept getting jostled as the crowd seethed and writhed and grew, making him pull his arms tighter and tighter around himself to try and avoid brushing up against anyone. The low lights of the circus tent bred corners full of shadow that would bulge and leap up the fabric walls with the wind, setting him on edge and making him jump. There seemed to be some kind of light smoke in the air, scented and spiced in a way that made Caleb dizzy and his vision fuzzy around the edges. And the music, coming from seemingly nowhere, it pressed on him, promised things to come in low, dramatic tones. He didn’t like that, he didn’t like knowing what was coming. Everything that was making the crowd around him, his companions, coo and gasp with awe, point and grin and elbow each other excitedly, it just made Caleb more and more anxious.

 _Stop it,_ he told himself firmly, or at least he tried to sound firm, _It’s all an act. It’s just a show. Try and have a normal reaction to something for once._

Itching and worrisome, his fingers pressed against his long duster jacket, finding the hard angles of the books concealed within it. That made Caleb feel a little better, just knowing that they were there. Their stoic firmness and well-worn leather, reminding him that there were things that still made sense to him, even if nothing else seemed to. It was some small comfort.

It would be better if he had his cat, that soft, dusty orange fur to run his fingers over and a low comforting purr to help his jangling nerves, but he knew better than to summon Frumpkin, the poor thing would hate this oppressive, unsettling atmosphere even more than he did.

So Caleb could only close his eyes, bite his lower lip, try and plan some escape route through the crowd and wish fervently that he was somewhere else. Or that he _was_ someone else. Someone who wasn’t so…broken.

“Not to tell you how to spend your money, my fine friend,” a smooth, almost liquid voice hummed from beside him, “But it would be a poor thing to pay three coppers to stand in a tent and keep your eyes shut, hmm?”

Caleb tried not to look so rattled as he opened his eyes and saw the purple tielfing from the tavern, the one who’d moved so easily and smiled in a way that had been sticking in his mind ever since. If anything, he’d only gotten more ostentatious since the tavern, with a loose white silk shirt that left even more of his tattoos bare, tight trousers of some kind of dark, shiny material, his thin arms and arched horns dripping with so much gold and so many gemstones that it looked as though he was standing in a rainfall of luxury, simply frozen in time. He hadn’t been standing there when Caleb entered and the crowd had only gotten thicker, but here he was, seamlessly and silently.

His pointed, white teeth showed as he smiled, a smile that had an edge to it that made Caleb feel like he was in on a secret joke between the two of them, “The show is as magical as I promised, you can trust my word. I would hate for you to miss it.”

“Oh,” Caleb found himself scrambling for words, more so than usual, heat creeping up from under his heavy collar. _It must be the warmth of the tent._ “I…I’m sure it is, uh…”

“Mollymauk,” the tiefling supplied easily, “Molly to my friends.”

 _Stupid,_ Caleb cursed himself for forgetting his name. He remembered thinking it sounded like some spell word, some enchantment, how could he have forgotten?

“Forgive me,” he clutched his coat tighter, “I’m Caleb, by the way, Caleb Widowghast. I can’t remember if I said…”

Molly smiled a little wider, a little kinder, “I would never begrudge hearing such a beautiful name again.”

Caleb felt something happen in his chest, some kind of lurch that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. In the next second, he blamed it on the effects of the smoke.

“Thank you,” he mumbled, gruffly, not knowing where to put his eyes, “It…it’s not that I doubt you, I’m sure the show is wonderful, I just…”

“You seem to have been having a rough time of things,” the tiefling tilted his head a little, catching the low light on his horns.

Caleb didn’t really know how to answer that, “Did you…did you see that in your cards or something?”

Mollymauk simply chuckled, a pleasant, friendly sound, “I read people’s faces as well as I do my cards. Your burdens are writ on your face, my friend Caleb Widowghast.”

The wizard started down at his boots, the heat spreading across his cheeks. He hated blushing, with his red hair it made him look like a tomato.

Suddenly, a gentle but insistent hand pushed his chin up, until Molly’s eyes met his own again. Something about the look in them made him pause. As much as he tried to tell himself that this guy was a showman, an actor, as much as some more rational part of his brain was spluttering that he only saw Caleb as a customer, a mark…there was something real in that gaze. Caleb had spent most of his life reading deceit in every act of kindness, painting doubt and uncertainty over any words he was given, and yet even he couldn’t deny what he saw on Mollymauk’s face.

“How about this, Caleb,” Molly said gently, “I’ll stand by you and watch the show with you. I have made some promises to you and your companions, after all, and I intent to see that they are fulfilled…and we’ll see if tonight can’t ease some of those burdens I see in your eyes. Yes?”

Caleb felt his arms drop from where they were tightly wrapped around his chest.

“Alright,” he nodded, standing a little straighter.

The tielfing grinned, pulling back his hand and turning Caleb gently towards the centre of the semi-circle, precisely on time as the music and lights swelled to signal the beginning of the night’s festivities, as if he had planned it.

 

Despite everything else that happened that evening, even all that happened afterwards, Caleb found himself glad that he’d come to the circus.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr, @my-dearesteliza and I have a ko-fi too! Please consider leaving a comment, I do love them and this is my first critical role fanfic so feedback would be super helpful!


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